Canberra (pronounced more like “Can-bra” with the emphasis on the “can”), gets a bad rap.

“Why would you want to go there?” was a question I had to answer more than once about visiting Australia’s capital city. Most of the people asking this question were Aussies themselves. For many tourists, Canberra doesn’t even make their radar screen.

And although Canberra may not be home to as much excitement and variety as Melbourne or Sydney, I quite enjoyed my time there.

Of course, a good chunk of what made Canberra the awesome place that it was, was the incredible hospitality and company of my Canadian friend who now lives there – whose name is also Nora. Wait – it gets weirder: we discovered while visiting together that we actually went to the same performing arts high school, and we were both drama majors. Thank you, Mr. Yates, for being the cue that we may have shared the same science teacher!